On occasion wireless standards are updated for various reasons. Once the update is approved by the reviewing committee, the update is released as new version of the standard. For example, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) developed the 802.16 standard for wireless broadband communication. The 802.16 standard has released several versions including 802.16e for mobile wireless devices, A future version of 802.16 includes 802.16m having support for higher data rates between a subscriber and a provider device. Another standard that has released several versions includes the Long-Term Evolution (LTE). Each version of LTE is referred to as a release number (e.g., release number 8).
Typically a new version of a standard requires any device conforming to the new version to also be backward compatible and operate on older versions of the standard. Thus, the communication networks can be updated in a piecemeal fashion with devices supporting the new version operating alongside devices that only support the older versions. This allows providers to spread out the cost of updating their network over a period of time. This also allows a user to use an older subscriber device on a network supporting a new version.